according to his needs.”60
Providing a More Balanced Contextual Framework for Marx
How then might it be possible to better contextualize Marx, so that we might not only
better understand his intentions but also set the stage for more collaborative efforts that focus on meaningful policy interventions rather than doctrinal infighting? We might start from the lessons learned in this article:
1) ‘There is literally no distinction between those things possessing a physical nature and those things possessing an abstract nature. They simply are bundles of reorganized energy, products or commodities, undifferentiated except by perspective and definition, generated through labor, the means of production, being exercised upon the material of the world (things and thought things) through the act of appropriation (differentiating and naming);’ and
2) ‘Man presently interacts with the world only through his self-generated but purely mental images that are but abstractions, through the thought-things known as concepts (apples, trees, balls, cars, pots).
This sounds very much how the Internet and companies operating in and through the Internet view individuals as they work on their computers or phones, engage with apps, or
sleep with Apple Watches or other devices
strapped to their wrists. People in these
environments are truly commodities, as they
are nothing more than repositories of data to be
mined by companies for even more information which can be “sold” to advertisers wishing to gain more profits.
More disturbingly, it sounds a lot like the metaverse – most prominently promoted by Facebook, the company that most openly and publicly focuses on groups and not people. In the metaverse, individuals not only turn over their personal preferences for purchases and groups but their very personal, most personal interests. Individuals are now able not only to present their self, but they create avatars who may not be their self, they create personalities other than themselves, and they create fantasies – which at the end of the day may reveal inner most feelings and drivers. The metaverse moves into a space that was once considered private, and it strips away every data point within that space so to increase revenue in a public space. And this approach generates data 24/7, so there is no privacy, no time for oneself.
This is important in the sense that “free time” or “leisure time” is that time when men and women are most free. If people are not experiencing such time, wherein they are
working to develop the interests that define and
represent them as fully functioning human
beings but instead are having this time captured and used “without payment” by
companies/capitalists working through the Internet, it should then be argued that capitalism has reached its highest form and most complete expression.
This in turn raises yet a more disturbing notion
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